Joseph Cook — Bullish on Ticonderoga

Joseph Cook was bullish on economic development in Ticonderoga.

“Joseph Cook predicted that Ticonderoga will have a population of 10,000 inhabitants in 1890. The place is rapidly growing and has one of the finest water privileges in the country, which is fast being utilized,” The Glen’s Falls Messenger reported on Sept. 7, 1883.

In other Joseph Cook news collected from historic newspapers of the region:

1882

• “Mrs. Joseph Cook, wife of our industrious townsman, Rev. Joseph Cook, returned home on Saturday having traveled all the way from Japan alone,” the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on July 7. “Her husband is now in Australia and will not return until after Christmas. He will come via the Sandwich Islands and California.”

1890

• I am reminded of that adage, “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”

The Morning Star of Glens Falls on Feb. 21, republished a New York Sun editorial criticizing Joseph Cook of Ticonderoga as being a long-winded speaker.

The Sun, in turn, could be chided for overuse of flowery language.

“That polyphonous old polysyllabic Joseph Cook discussed the following topics during his talk jamboree in Boston yesterday: ‘Minority Rule in Congress; Remnants of Rebellion in Washington; Ballot Reform; State and National Reform in Congressional Proceedings; The Pan-American Conference.’ Joseph can pump more wind into his organ of speech than any other living man.”

1876

• “Rev. Joseph Cook is meeting with great success in his Monday meetings lectures in Boston. We understand he has been offered a salary of $6,000 (the equivalent of $176,975 in 2025 dollars) per annum to accept the pastorate of a church in New York,” the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on Oct. 20.

1877

• “It seems that Moody and Sankey are not popular enough in Boston to diminish the number of Rev. Joseph Cook’s hearers,” the Ticonderoga Sentinel editorialized on Feb. 9, commenting on a recent New York Observer report.

It might be more accurate to say that Cook, the clergyman from Ticonderoga, was equally popular with evangelists Dwight Moody and Ira Stankey, who led a noon prayer meeting at Park Street Church in Boston at the same time as Cook was delivering his weekly noon lecture at Tremont Church.

Both services drew capacity crowds.

“The lecture (by Cook), which was upon Thos. Park’s idea of human guilt, was a clear and powerful argument, proven from facts in man’s nature, the need of atonement,” the Observer reported. “It was not only powerful, but addressed professional men and scholars, many of whom reject evangelical views, it was most opportune.”

1882

• “Our townsman, Rev. Joseph Cook, is lecturing just across the water at Bombay. Subject: ‘Certainties of Religion,’” the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on March 3.